At Audio Emporium we’re all about the point of diminishing returns. State of the art is invariably UBER priced. We try to attain EDGE of the art performance for affordable money.
We would like to get close to the best performance, at significantly less dinero. Kimber has hit the nail on the head with its new Carbon speaker and interconnect cables!
Ray Kimber and staff have worked on this design for 25+ years. The Carbons have arrived and are an instant HOME RUN! Kimber is already significantly back ordered on parts of the line. Please join the cue. It’s worth a short wait.
Carbons are based on the factor, that the carbon material employed, is somewhat conductive. When mixed with Teflon as an insulating coating, the cable actually measures faster. Most importantly, the Carbon cables clearly sound more dynamic & transparent than Teflon or poly coated cables.
Kimber Kable Carbon Interconnects (XLR or RCA)
.5m $476, .75m $526, 1m $576, 2m $676, 3m $976, 4m $1176
Carbon 8
Kimber Kable Carbon Speaker Cables
Carbon 8: 2m $1500, 3m $1900, 3.5m $2100, 4.5m $2500, 6m $3100
Carbon 16: 2m $2600, 3m $3400, 3.5m $3800, 4.5m $4600, 6m $5800
Carbon 18XL: 2m $3600, 3m $4600, 3.5m $5100, 4.5m $6100, 6m $7600
First Listen
I first tried the Carbons on an upper tier, but not crazy system: $8450
GoldenEar Triton 2+ speakers, $3850pr
McIntosh MA-252 integrated amp $4000
Emotiva ERC-4 CD Player $600
I’m a CD collecti-holic. While I have other sources in my system, I’m in deep for silver discs. Further, to be a COMPLETE-IST is a curse as well as a joy. I just can’t help it. There are more and more discs being released every day that present a treasure trove of music. Don’t believe that nonsense you’ve heard about CDs being dead. Maybe it’s true for Katy Perry. Not for Vladimir Horowitz! You can’t get it all via streaming. And yep, we “have” to have it. Now. Further, we have to SUPPORT the digging that musical anthropologists are doing. Buy the CD box!
A perfect example is the new box of 15 CDs, “Vladimir Horowitz: The Great Come Back.” Holy Carnegie Hall, what an amazing box of music! We piano snobs know that Vlad was neurotic and eccentric- as well as being the most exciting performer our art as ever known. His technique was unassailable, all the while playing with “flat” hands. It made no sense, that he could do, what he could do, in the style in which he did it.
VH (1903-1989) “retired in 1952, unable to deal with the trauma that came with his craft. To walk on stage to tackle the big black beast in front of a huge audience, had become more than he could bear. By 1965 he had faced down his demons, complete with two sessions of electro shock therapy. In preparation for his formal come back concert on May 9 of 1965, Horowitz wanted some warm up practice AT Carnegie Hall, with its new Steinway. Fortunately for us, these practice sessions were recorded! We hear stunning playing of VH is his prime. We hear chatter between VH and his recording engineer, Thomas Frost, his wife and other friends who came to support his “big build” to the most iconic piano recital in US history.
The fidelity of these recordings is GREAT! For 1965, in an “informal” setting, with no pressure on, what a thrill it is to sit in on these sessions! We hear VH practice as we could only dream to. We amateur pianists learn that we should be able to start a piece at any measure. We accept that we have to isolate more difficult sections from the piece to conquer them. And here in these recordings, we get to hear the best of the best- VH, practice in the same way. We get to sit in on his WORK and the discussions he has with friends and “Mr Frost.” We hear VH in a most comfortable setting, complete with his peculiar humor. “The first one was for me. That one was for the piano!” There’s no better way to hear the best pianist we’ve ever known.
After all this blathering… you can infer why A SINGLE SET OF CARBON BALANCED interconnects, running from the CD player to the integrated amp- is vital. Carbon gave the already fine sounding CD a real lift. It made the listening experience much more dynamic and INTIMATE. Clearly this is a case where… .we’re like a fly on the wall, listening in. It’s almost eerie, if not INTRUDING, that we have this close a perch to the greatest pianist in the world, doing his “private” prep for the most anticipated recital in recorded musical history.
The Carbon simply PUTS US THERE much better than lesser cables- including a handful of samples that were equal to and more expensive. When we moved on to speaker cables, we heard more of the same. The “presence” you can experience is ineffable.
Please visit our Dave’s Faves Kimber Carbon Interconnect listing to crunch down on the detail more specifically. Suffice to say, Kimber Carbons are right up our alley. They cost one tenth of the state of the art cables, but are in the same echelon.